Re: [Phys-L] uncertainty on the uncertainty

[David Bowman <David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu>]

Regarding JD's comments:

> ...
> I am reminded of the proverb of which the contrapositive
> says:  If it's not worth doing right, it's not worth doing.
>
> Why do people pretend this is important, in introductory lab
> situations where it clearly isn't?  Why not just skip it most
> of the time, and save it for the rare occasions where you
> have a big-enough N to make it worthwhile?

This discussion has caused me to be reminded of a quote attributed to Ernst Rutherford:

"If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment."

David Bowman